


twilight & evening bell

by wastrelwoods



Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: Character Study, Crisis of Faith, Death, Fictional Religion & Theology, Gen, Merle is a better man than he thinks he is and a better dad than he thinks he is, Nature Magic, Spoilers for Petals to the Medal, and a pretty piss-poor cleric but pan loves him anyway, more bittersweet than sad
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-28
Updated: 2016-12-28
Packaged: 2018-09-12 18:45:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,902
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9085126
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wastrelwoods/pseuds/wastrelwoods
Summary: Merle has a little trouble adjusting to the afterlife. Kravitz does his best to help.





	

**Author's Note:**

> title from the Alfred Lord Tennyson poem 'Crossing the Bar'

The world stretches away from Merle, shrinking to a pinpoint in the distance, infinitely small, and then gone. What surrounds that tiny, far-off speck is....everything. Merle's had his fair share of divine encounters, and Pan knows he's dipped into this particular stream more times than any being has a right to, but he could never forget a sight like that. 

He stands there for a good long while--for a loosey-goose value of the word 'stand'--and takes it all in. Merle remembers watching the sun set into the sea every night, seeing the sky painted in every color imaginable, the waves reflecting it a all, remembers the little hop-skip in his heart, his first moment of understanding what it might mean to worship. Not that he ever got much better at that kind of thing, in all his years on Pan's good green earth. Cleric he might be, but beyond that Merle knows he was never much of a religious man. 

Kravitz clears his throat, and Merle turns--must be in some kind of body after all, if he can do that--and offers him a cheerful little wave. He's in his full work getup, scythe in hand, red eyes glowing under his hood. Merle doesn't begrudge him. The man's been trying to get this job done for years. 

"Merle Highchurch,” the reaper says, prim and proper, flipping through his book with one hand. "Sixty-eighth time's the charm, eh?"

The dwarf just shrugs, which is a time and a half with no physical form. He should probably protest, he thinks. Any adventurer worth their salt would be furious right about now, hurl curses, burn spell slots, kick and bite and find a way back. But, Merle thinks, he's come and gone the better part of a hundred times already, and he's just about ready to be done. Funny to think, after all that, he's no better an adventurer than he was a man of the cloth. 

Kravitz watches him, then sighs and slides back the hood. His dark-skinned, handsome face solidifies into being a moment later, thick brows twisted in concern. “Are you alright?"

"Me?" Merle asks, a little taken aback by the question. "Oh, yeah, sure. I'm fine." He stares wistfully out at the distant speck where home once was. "I mean, the worst is behind me, right?" he offers, and it’s true, as far as he can make out. Even the memory of pain is gone. Death is the pits for a very brief moment, and then....

Well, after that it’s more or less okay. Kravitz looks at him a moment longer, uncertain, and closes his book with a snap. "You don't seem...happy."

A laugh bubbles up from the space where Merle once had a chest. "I'm dead, buckaroo," he points out. "Game over."

"Your soul has relocated to the astral plane," Kravitz corrects, gesturing expansively outward as his scythe disappears in a puff of smoke. around them, reality shifts like a reflection in moving water, the landscape shifting from sand to rock to meadow to dense forest to cobblestone and hitting every possible space in between. Merle sees a familiar sunset flash by, and is struck by a sudden pang of loss. "Think of this as the beginning of a new era!" Kravitz pleads, "Or a vacation. Or...maybe retirement?" he amends. 

Merle can't remember Pan ever having much to say about retirement. he sighs. "I'd much rather just...." he can't sum the feeling up into words without quoting some kind tract or other, and Merle's never had much of a head for memorization. "Well, let’s say eternity was never really in my wheelhouse.” 

With a hum, the reaper lets his book fall open again, licking his thumb and gently parting the dust-covered pages one by one. Merle watches him with mild interest. There’s nothing better to do. After a long moment Kravitz stops, lets out another low sound, triumphant. “Oh, yes, I see. A Panite. You’ve checked all the appropriate fields in your pre-registration form, of course.” 

“I don’t remember filling out--”

The reaper waves a hand in his direction, “Oh, no, don’t worry, we keep very good records here. Her Ladyship won’t have it any other way.” He looks up again, and smiles broadly. “Well, Merle, you’ll be happy to hear that your paperwork has all been processed, and of course your body will be returned to the earth with all the proper ceremony.” 

It is something of a weight lifted from his shoulders, but then Merle remembers he doesn’t exactly have shoulders anymore. “Oh.” He bites back another sigh, because the last thing he wants to do is come across as sullen. It just…death isn’t really what he expected. What he’d been taught to expect. Well, clay to clay. There’s a whole body of his out there, a universe away, rejoining the great work of Pan and becoming one with creation. It’s just a little staggering, thinking about the rest of him, separate from all that, just…moving on. Continuing. Forever. 

He sits down hard, on a surface that isn’t really stone or wood or grass or even real, in the usual sense. No more sunsets, he thinks. No more Pan. “Oh,” he echoes, trying not to sound as hollow as he feels. 

Pretty funny, but it turns out for all his adolescent wishing, there was a part of Merle that didn’t want to walk away from Pan and never look back, after all. He doesn’t think he even knows how to. 

Kravitz is still watching him, his beautiful face gone totally inscrutable. Suddenly, Merle wants him gone. There’s too much happening in his head, he needs time, needs...something more familiar to hold on to with a lifetime’s theology crumbling under his feet--the place where his feet used to be. “Hey, you couldn’t do me a favor, could you?” he rasps. “Check on Taako and Magnus, see that they don’t take it too hard, huh? Let ‘em know I’m...I’m happy,” he lies. 

The reaper purses his lips, and stares at him one moment longer. “If you’re sure,” he offers, and turns and disappears. 

Merle stares after him, and wishes he could see the stars one more time. Around him, the space goes on shifting, unsure where it can stick. The dwarf makes no effort to help it settle, dimly recognizing each setting as it flashes by. Refuge. Lucas’ lab. The quad on the Bureau’s moonbase, with its perfectly trimmed green grass and its cobbled walkways and perfect silver domes and a breathtaking view, which the astral plane totally fails to replicate. Rockport. Phandalin, before Gundrun, even before the mine ran dry. Neverwinter in the snow. Goldcliff--

The view freezes. 

A faint, false breeze stirs the air of the astral plane, and a shower of petals tickle Merle’s nose so convincingly that he almost forgets he’s just a soul without a body. The sun sparkles off the water. Not thirty feet away, he can make out the twin shapes of Hurley and Sloane in the twisting bark of the tree. “Ah, shit,” the dwarf breathes, blinking in the projected sunlight. The place where he’d once lost and gained an arm in the space of an hour twinges painfully, and Merle looks down and realizes he’s starting to miss the damn thing. He stands again, shuffles over and tries to rest a hand that doesn’t exist on the trunk of a tree that’s just an illusion. The physical sensation is there, of course, but it lacks the thrum of energy Merle had always taken for granted, the part that makes it really real, running through all the things Pan made. 

“Your friends are doing about as well as can be expected,” Kravitz says, appearing behind Merle as suddenly as he’d gone. “I’m sure they’ll come around, given time--oh.” The reaper rests his own hand beside the dwarf’s, and frowns. “That’s...strange. Did you know them?” 

Merle can’t bring himself to give him an answer, not sure he owes the bounty hunter an explanation. A wistful sigh escapes him despite his best efforts. It’s pretty damn stupid for his throat to feel so tight when he doesn’t even have a body, the dwarf thinks, but that doesn’t make the sensation go away. “Y’know something, pal?” he manages, and for the most part he doesn’t even choke on the words, “Dying, I didn’t mind so much. Happens to the best of us. But I don’t think I’m really cut out for this afterlife shit.” 

“You wouldn’t be the first to say so,” Kravitz agrees, tapping his dark leather shoe against the ground. “Would it help if I told you that you could see anyone? Everyone, in fact, that ever was? Friends, family, casual acquaintances, total strangers,” he lists. “Everybody dies. Anyone you want to see?” 

Merle considers that possibility for about as long as he can stand, and pushes it neatly aside. “I’m not much of a people person,” he says gruffly. The thing about living without regrets, he thinks, is there aren’t too many souls floating around the afterlife to have unfinished business with. Except enemies, of course. He misses the boys, of course, and his kids too, and one day he might be able to summon up a shit to give about the kid detective, nosy little scamp. Hell, he might even miss Lucretia, for all his shit luck with women. But all those people still have lives to live, and Merle can’t say he’s ever been the type to wait around for anyone else. “Nah, there’s no one,” he says, with finality. 

Disappointed, Kravitz lets his shoulders fall forward. The cherry petals that blow in his direction keep shrivelling and going brown and dry when they get too close, but he doesn’t seem to notice. Merle doesn’t tell him. The poor bastard would probably try to apologize or something. There’s a muddy stigma about death Merle’s never fully understood. As far as he can figure, it’s just another step in the cycle. If this were really Goldcliff, all those dead flowers would be packing into the soil between the cobbles, crumbling and giving all their nutrients back to the earth to get sucked right back up into the tree, to make more trees, to spread life all through everything. Nothing to get all weepy over. 

A sudden light flares in Kravitz’s red eyes, and he straightens to his full height, gaze darting between Merle and the tree as a smile plays over his lips. “I just remembered,” he begins, “The breakout, a few years back, when that pesky relic and the little scientist caused the mass security breach--”

“Yeah, the big legion of ghosts,” Merle agrees, not sure where he’s going with this. “I remember. I was there.”

“Yes! Exactly, of course! You stopped it, you--” He tugs at the stone of farspeech hanging around his neck, grinning. “Merle Highchurch, I might just be able to help you.” 

Confused, Merle watches him dial up some frequency or another, bringing the stone to his ear and then mumbling into it with a feverish professionalism. “Your majesty! Yes, the dwarf, you remember-- well, yes, Ma’am, he did take his time checking in--I know, yes, but the paperwork--a moment to speak with him? I have reason to believe--yes, he directly interceded on his behalf. Oh, yes, fully and completely gave his blessing. Thank you. Oh, thank you, milady.” 

“Care to fill me in?” Merle asks, but the reaper holds a finger up to his mouth, and keeps the stone pressed to his ear. After a moment of silence, the mumbling starts all over again.

“Yes, this is Kravitz. I have one of yours here--Oh, good, you know him! Yes, he specified on his paperwork--I know it’s unconventional, but I thought since you’d shown favor for him in the past...yes, the arm, and he’s already the exception to so many rules...of course, it’s up to you, but I’m sure he--did you put me on speakerphone?” He looks almost nervously back to Merle, and bites at his lip. “Of course, I’d be happy to let you speak to him yourself, one moment--” In a split second, he has the chain off from around his neck, extending the stone to Merle, who reaches for it with trembling fingers. 

“Hello?”

“Merle, my child!” says the voice of Pan, as bright and divine as he remembers, and the dwarf feels his knees start to give way under him. Kravitz rests a clammy hand on the space that used to be occupied by Merle’s elbow, reassuring and steadying. “I see you found the answers you were looking for!”

“Uh, yeah. Yeah. More or less.” His voice trembles while he says it. “I...didn’t think you would remember that, actually,” he says, chokes out a pretty half-assed laugh. “Or, well, me. I mean, I’ve never been very...I’m not much of a religious guy,” he admits, thinks that if he had cheeks they’d be bright red with shame. 

“Oh, I don’t know if I believe that,” Pan argues, “You lead a very long and surprisingly eventful life, Merle Highchurch, and while your periods of enthusiasm were few and far between I can’t say I ever knew your faith in me to really waver.” 

“But what about--”

“Don’t argue with me, kid, I’m a god,” Pan says, firmly. “The important thing is, you did well, son.” Merle’s whole being shivers at that pronouncement, and hey, whaddya know, even without a body he can feel thick tears streaming down his cheeks. “The Raven Queen’s man says you need my guidance. What’s up?”

The dwarf swallows around the lump in his throat, staring up at the tree, and summons up all the meager scrapings of faith that are in him. Then, he asks a question. 

Pan is silent for one long, terrifying moment, and Merle bites down hard on the urge to backtrack, to beg and plead for forgiveness and apologize for presuming to be worthy, or claim it was just a joke, or drop the stone and walk off into the eternity he so desperately wants out of. Kravitz looks down at him with worry etched into the line of his perfectly sculpted jaw. The god hmmms thoughtfully, and says, “Yes, I think that sounds more than reasonable. Consider it done, Merle Highchurch.” Then he hangs up. 

A strangled bark of laughter pushes up from the center of Merle’s chest, and around them the blossoms of the cherry tree, burning gold, are picked up by a ferocious, unnatural wind. The astral plane blurs and shifts, unable to keep up, and then it drops away altogether. The dwarf is still crying, heaving sobs and thick, snotty, awful tears as he drops to his knees and finds that he suddenly has knees again. He looks up at the familiar night sky. “Thank you,” he whispers. 

Picking his way across the ground to the body, Kravitz is silent, even a little colder than normal. When he reaches the dwarf’s corpse, half-buried in rubble, he turns back to the kneeling spirit and says coolly, “If you do this, Merle, you won’t see Magnus or Taako ever again. Or anyone, for that matter.” 

Merle wipes his face with his beard, and offers the reaper a half-smile. “Yeah, I know. But I’ve had a good long run, and I’m about ready for a rest,” he sighs, crawling over to his body and placing a hand on the solewood arm. “Never could get the hang of all that religious stuff, but this? The ol’ communing with nature bit was always my favorite.” Strictly speaking, both of his arms are now phantom limbs, but the one that he’d lost and gained again in Lucas’ lab comes to rest on the solewood beside its partner. “I used to dream about this,” he confides, with a secretive smile. 

Kravitz draws his hood up, ready to stand on ceremony now, and flips through the pages of his book, drawing a red-tipped quill from the depths of his robe and ticking marks down onto the parchment. Merle watches him out of the corner of one eye, but his gaze stays mostly fixed on the stars. When he’s nearly done, the dwarf clears his throat and says, “Keep an eye on the boys for me, will you? Whatever plane they’re in. They’ll get into all sorts of trouble without me.”

Under the hood, Merle can make out a grisly, skeletal, but nevertheless kind smile. “I’ll do my best,” he promises. “Are you ready?”

“Yeah, yeah,” Merle says, and then in a rush of golden light he isn’t Merle anymore. 

The solewood shoots down into the earth first, digging in deep roots and spreading to groundwater, then it starts to grow up, pushing dust and rocks aside as it climbs on into the sky. The gnarled trunk twists and bends as it goes up, nearly horizontal in places, and with an explosion of green leaves burst from the ends of the branches, all facing up to the stars. The ground is dry but the tree is hardy, sprouting from nothing to a hundred-yearling in a matter of seconds. Kravitz watches until the golden light fades, and the tree is nothing more than a tree. But a very nice tree, he decides, and lets the book fall shut.


End file.
